Absence
by Chryselephantine38
Summary: While Malfurion still does not wake from his sleep in the Emerald Dream, Tyrande Whisperwind is left to fend for herself and when her duties are over and there is nothing to occupy her thoughts, she is haunted by thoughts of her loneliness.


It's cold in Teldrassil that night and Tyrande Whisperwind looks for any sign of the moon's emergence from behind tempered gray clouds but her commuting is only replied to by the loud clap of thunder. Elune, much like the moon, hides from the ashen forecast and does not seem interested in making small talk with her High Priestess.

And so, Tyrande Whisperwind can do nothing more than to sit under the miniscule cover of a veranda sitting on the edge of the Moon's Temple outer-rims. Her servants worry for her well-being and beg their Queen to reside for the night but she gives them no definitive answer as to when she will retire, or if she will on that night.

Times like these, when the light from the moon is unable to provide for her its illumination that she will stare into the darkness and realize her own folly. To marry the Archdruid was to lead such an unhappy life? Many times she asked herself that.

It was not that she did not love Malfurion very much. Rather, it was that she loved him too much. His absence left a gaping hole inside her heart and the blood felt as though it seeped from the wound with every hour that passed in those long, unforgiving years.

But she understood. Of course she did. Tyrande Whisperwind is the fair and just Queen of the Kaldorei, the beacon of Hope for their once-wronged race. She was the mature and understanding Lady of the Moon, who Elune held foremost in her graces. She did not have the time nor the resources to follow her heart. Or to worry about the way her life seems to just pass her by.

As much as she wished it was so, the praise that she received from the young and old of the Kaldorei, it wasn't enough to sate the loneliness that she so loathed to acknowledge. She would do her duties and she would do them well but happily, that is something that had long since left her. Happiness was the spark that dulled with every passing day that his eyes remained closed, unable to see the world, and unable to see her.

Would it be so incredibly selfish of her to demand his attention? To demand that he pay attention to the woman that he claimed to love more than the stars and cherish more than the moon? Did she grow tiresome and is that the reason he can never wake from that slumber of damned verdancy?

Irrational as she knew these thoughts to be, she couldn't quite shake them from her head.

"I'll be back soon, he said," She whispered bitterly into the wind, not bothering to move the splayed form of her bangs from obscuring her view.

A few days ago, she found the inspiration to write a letter to him, should he wake one day, she's set it next to him, hoping that he would notice it. Though she would be thoroughly embarassed if anyone were to read it. Forlornly, she recalled what she had wrote:

_Welcome back to the waking world, my love._

_Perhaps when you're reading this letter, I will be gone. But I wonder, will you miss me? Of course, those are just my childish words, we're not children anymore, are we?_

_Do you remember the flower festivals that we held in our small village? I really loved those. When you would pick those flowers just for me and get scolded by your Mother. Even though she hit you and reprimanded you thusly, you sat unfazed and continued tying their stems together._

_When I asked you what had happened to your face, you'd place a flower crown atop my head and tell me that your 'Queen' musn't worry about such things._

_The other adolescence often told me that you were too aloof and very rude when we reached that stage of our youth. You didn't talk much and you were very shy, right? I wish they could've seen what I saw in you but at the same time,_

_I hoped that no one else would ever notice that greatness of yours._

_My wish was selfish and therefore, Elune would not grant it to me - All of Azeroth can now see how marvelous and important you truly are._

"Now I fear that, with the absence of Nordrassil and our immortality, you and I will be unable to meet again. I am glad that we had embraced so passionately one last time before you had departed. Tyrande Whisperwind."

"Huh?" She looked around. She could've sworn she heard his voice but those were her words. The words from the letter she had so brazenly written, "Ah, I am so lonely that I'm imagining his voice."

"Tyrande," The familiar voice rang again and it sounded almost sad. So deep but somehow, so soft. Wonderfully melodic and soothing to the very soul.

Tears welled in her eyes and she tried her hardest to stop the flow. It was unsightly for the Queen of the Kaldorei to look like this - To look so vulnerable in a public place such as this.

Tyrande truly did believe she imagined the voice when it did not break the silence again. Surely, she was being driven insane after many years of loneliness. Just because she wished for him on a lonely night, doesn't mean that he has come.

She continued to internally scold herself but stopped short as her glowing eyes stopped short. Tautly-muscled arms of violet slowly moved and secured themselves around her abdomen. The feeling was unmistakable and she fell without hesitation into the broad chest behind her, it supported her so perfectly that she thought she had somehow died and gone to some blissful afterlife.

"Forgive me, Tyrande." He whispered ruefully into her ear. His breath was hot in contrast to the wind's cool touch and she shivered from the contact.

"What is there to forgive? I forgive you for trying to save Azeroth? I forgive you for leaving me so that our people and I could have a future in this world?" Tears fell relentlessly down her face but she tried her hardest to hold onto that small semblance of composure that she had worked so hard for.

"I would have believed that you were unfazed by my absence would your tears not be burning my skin." He replied.

"If I was unfazed by your absence, then.." She paused, clumsily wiping away her tears, ".. then, I would not be a worthy wife,"

Malfurion's lips trailed from her collarbone up to her ear with butterfly kisses and she reveled in the affection. Usually so stoic and professional in demeanor, when Tyrande had seen him, he was immediately pulled into saving Azeroth and did not have time to indulge her womanly sensibilities.

"Is it truly you?" She asked, unsure. Her voice quaked with such fragility that one would think if he wasn't real, her being would break.

"If you're unsure whether it is I or not, why are you allowing me to touch you?"

"Because if there.. if there is the smallest chance that it is you, if I reject your touch now, when will I next feel it? In another decade? Two? Three? A hundred years from now? How would I live if I had missed out on such a chance?"

Malfurion ceased his advance and his tall ears drooped in sorrow and guilt, "You hurt this much and yet I was ignorant to your feelings?"

"My love, do not berate yourself. From back then until now, I have understood that I am always weighing on your mind. The only difference is that I am no longer the only issue that you confide there - You are important to many more people than I in Azeroth and neither of us can afford to be selfish."

"How long had I been sleeping this time?" He asked softly, sounding almost afraid to know the answer.

"Since the last time that you laid waking eyes on me, it has been fourty-seven years."

"Then you truly waited that many years for a husband like me?"

"Of course! If my love could not bridge a cap of a mere half a century, then how can I say that it is love? It is merely a like if I can wait any less for moments like these."

"Ah, even if I looked in every realm of this large, ever-expanding universe, I could not find a woman as patient as you."

"My patience wears thin, my love. When will it be that I must be patient no longer?"

"Soon, I promise you this."

"Then how long will I be privileged enough as to see you awake?"

Malfurion's face visibly drops as he rests his chin on her slender shoulder: "This one night is all that I am able to give you right now. Accept my deepest apologies."

"If one night is all that we have, then I have no time to waste on resentment."

Without uttering another word, Tyrande turned in his hold and placed a chaste kiss on his lips for only a single moment and smiled at him.

"You are truly a vexing woman," Malfurion said before dipping his head down to her level and claiming her lips as he had done very few times before in their marriage.

The ashen clouds drifted away from the scenery and the moon finally was able to illuminate the skies and with its brightest of lights, it fell upon the two Kaldorei lovers. They silently deepen their kiss and just the same as the night he left for the first time to the Emerald Dream, they embraced each other passionately and earnestly.


End file.
